Officials in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have instructed the National Institutes of Health staff to pause all agency awards to universities whose funding the Trump administration froze, according to an internal email verified by multiple news outlets.

The email, first posted on X by Nature reporter Max Kozlov, was sent to grant management officers by Michelle Bulls, director of an NIH office that oversees compliance and manages grant policy. It notes that the funding freezes announced at several universities over the past few weeks are already underway, explicitly naming NU, Columbia University, Brown University, Cornell University and Harvard University.

NU received $519.6 million in NIH grants in 2024. According to the email, HHS officials instructed the NIH not to provide universities any information about “whether or why the funds are frozen.”

“We should try to respect their request and follow the guidance,” Bulls wrote in the email.

The Trump administration froze $790 million in federal funds for NU on April 8. Government officials have yet to notify NU of the freeze.

The Trump administration has not released a list of demands for NU to regain its funding. The University remains under investigation by the Education Department for alleged Title VI violations related to antisemitism. Last month, Columbia capitulated to several federal demands relating to antisemitism. Harvard, on the other hand, rejected federal demands to change its protest policies and sued the Trump administration Monday.

An NIH spokesperson told The Daily that “NIH does not discuss internal deliberations on grant decisions.”

A University spokesperson did not respond to multiple requests for comment by the time of publication.

The HHS email is one of the first public confirmations of the Trump administration carrying out its funding freezes against elite universities.

“These developments are deeply disturbing,” University President Michael Schill wrote in an April 10 email regarding the funding freeze. “They impact the critical research we perform every day, the lives of those who do it and those who benefit from it.”

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